


Your Pain Is My Pain

by FruitPunch493



Series: Jazzalil College AU's [2]
Category: Firebringer - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24207337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FruitPunch493/pseuds/FruitPunch493
Summary: When someone gets injured, the marks show up on their soulmate--bruises, cuts, scrapes--everything short of internal injuries and diseases. Jemilla is the RA of one of the dorm floors on campus. Most of her residents are alright, but she decides that she really cannot stand Zazzalil. The shorter girl is loud, blunt, and overall impossible to get along with. When Jemilla realizes that they might be soulmates, that adds another layer to their already tense relationship.
Relationships: Jemilla/Zazzalil (Firebringer)
Series: Jazzalil College AU's [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749610
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	Your Pain Is My Pain

Today was the most exciting day of Jemilla's college life to date.

Today was the day that the past week of full, ten hour days doing seemingly pointless RA training was finally getting put to use. Her residents had finished moving in earlier that morning and, within the hour, they were going to have their first floor meeting of the school year. If she was being honest, she was worried that they weren't going to like her, but negative thoughts like those were pushed to the back of her mind as she started getting the lounge ready to go.

The floor lounge was an area that had two small tables with some chairs, a few beanbags, and a large flat-screen TV on one wall. It was large enough to comfortably seat all ten of them, and just generally made sense for a floor meeting location.

Jemilla shuffled around excitedly, waiting for her residents to come and sit down. She heard some of them chattering in the hallway, and could see a couple of them standing nearby if she craned her neck just right she could see them. Being creepy wasn't the best way to win them over, she had decided, and she kept her focus directly on moving the chairs and bean bags into a large circle.

Once she was content with the placement of the chairs, she took a seat in one and played on her phone as residents started streaming in one by one, and filling into seats.

She had made sure to only leave enough so that each resident would have one, effectively forcing them to sit next to one another. This, unfortunately, did not encourage interactions between the group like she had thought it would. Instead, they backed their chairs out a little bit to give themselves more room in their personal bubbles. There were one or two people who were quietly speaking, but everyone else was sat silently, waiting for the meeting to start.

Seeing the awkwardness, and feeling some of it herself, she decided to stand and start just as the last person--a short brunette with brown eyes--entered the room.

"Hello, everyone," she greeted with a big grin as the person took her seat. "My name is Jemilla, and I'm your RA for this school year. I want to go around the circle and have everyone introduce themselves."

One by one, the residents introduced themselves by saying what their name and major was. Starting at Jemilla's right and going around there was Emberly (culinary arts), Tucker (theology), Sebastian (exploratory studies), Tiblyn (exploratory studies), Keeri (dance), Grant (art history), Zazzalil (engineering), Charlotte (communications), and Chorn whose full name was unpronounceable (theoretical physics). They got through that fairly quickly, and Jemilla ended with introducing herself as their RA.

"I'm going to pass some notecards and pens around, and if you could please write your name, major, and room number on them, that would be great." She smiled as she handed the stack of to Tucker and motioned that he should pass them around so that everyone could get them. "I'm also going to encourage you to write your phone number and university email on them, but I'm not going to require you to."

She took the extra notecards back and stood to go set them on one of the tables so they would be out of the way.

The black haired girl, Emberly, exclaimed suddenly and jumped back, sticking the tip of her finger in her mouth.

"Is everything alright?" Jemilla asked, cocking an eyebrow in her direction as she walked back to the circle and reclaimed her seat.

"Yeah, I just got a papercut."

"A papercut?" One of the boys looked at her, his eyes wide. "On your right pointer finger? Just now?"

"Uh, yeah?" She looked to him, skeptical about where this line of questioning was going.

The boy, who Jemilla recognized as Grant from their brief introductions a moment ago, wordlessly held up his finger to reveal a papercut on his own finger. The two stared at each other, and the rest of the group at them, realization dawning over the entire room.

"Alright, let's get those notecards filled out," Jemilla reminded, awkwardly stepping in to make sure the meeting didn't get sidetracked. She was sure the two would meet and talk about it afterwards, so she didn't feel too bad about breaking that up nearly as soon as it had happened. "And once you're done with that, we can do an ice breaker activity." She smiled to the sea of her residents, who were all doing their best to look enthusiastic, but definitely appeared to be less than happy.

She gave them a few minutes before she plunged straight into the explanation of their ice breaker.

"I know some of you are wrapping up, but that's okay, take your time." She looked around the circle, noting that there were only two people who were still writing. "We're gonna go ahead and get started with our first ice breaker activity. The one I picked is two truths and a lie because it's really simple, it's actually pretty fun, and I think it's straight forward enough that we can all enjoy it."

Without waiting for the last couple of people to finish, they began playing. The game became slightly more vulgar than Jemilla would have liked when he made a joke about having "smelly balls", and the entire group exclusively called him Smelly-Balls for the duration of the game. Jemilla hoped that this wouldn't be a nickname that stuck, but she didn't have high hopes for that. There was another truth that involved some weird duck story that had more plot twists than it should have, and the residents all began referring to Tucker as Ducker.

All appeared to be going well until they made it halfway around the circle, to the short girl with brown hair who had walked in last. Jemilla thought she remembered her name as Zazzalil.

"This is lame." Zazzalil said. "Why are we wasting our time with these childish ice breakers when we could be doing something fun that would actually get us hanging out? Oh!" She gestured to the television. "Why not watch a Netflix series together?"

"Because," Jemilla insisted, looking to the group of residents sitting in front of her. "We're having fun, aren't we?"

She broke eye contact with Zazzalil to look around at the room of residents who were looking in aimless directions to avoid confirming this for fear of upsetting someone they had just met.

"See?" Zazzalil began, gesturing to the group. "We're bored! How about we do something _actually_ fun?"

Jemilla did a scan of the room, noting the hopeful looks on everyone's faces. Her hands flew above her head as she groaned. "Fine, do what you want."

She got up and walked out of the room to go grab a drink of water. When she came back, they had already connected one of their laptops to the TV. She stood in the doorway and watched as they hit play on the first episode.

"I'm sure by the end of the school year we can catch up on Grey's Anatomy," Zazzalil said with an enthusiastic grin. "It'll be like our floor bonding time."

"It feels like we're morally obligated to watch the entirety of it. It's like a college rite of passage or something," the blonde girl, Keeri, said in agreeance. She smiled and laughed to herself waving her hand in a passive manner.

Jemilla took a seat at the very back of the group. She wasn't invested in watching it and would dip out after the first episode. For now, all she wanted to do was brood over the fact that Zazzalil had taken over her floor meeting. From that moment, she knew that the girl was going to cause her problems on the floor, whether intentional or not, and she wasn't fully prepared to deal with it.

* * *

Jemilla awoke to a thumping bass line that was entirely too loud for... whatever time it was now. She reached for her phone and unlocked the screen, squinting against the brightness of it. Of course it was two in the morning, and Zazzalil was playing obnoxiously loud music.

With a dramatic groan, she stood and trudged out into the hallway. In a haze, her feet carried her to Zazzalil's door where she knocked lightly. It was perhaps far too polite for the anger she currently felt.

The music only grew louder when the door swung open, and Jemilla squinted against the sudden brightness of Zazzalil's room.

"Hey, Jemilla. What's up?"

Jemilla cleared her throat in an attempt to stop her from rolling her eyes at the girl. As if she didn't know she was being obnoxious. "I have to be up in 4 hours, so can you maybe shut your music off? I know you might not care about your classes, but some of us do." Okay, Jemilla had to admit the comment was unwarranted, but she was tired, and angry, and crabby.

"Uh, fuck you?" The brunette moved to walk back into her dorm and shut the door, but Jemilla's hand shot up and stopped her from doing so.

"Please, just shut it off."

The two stood, eyeing each other in a standoff that lasted far longer than it should have.

Zazzalil was the first to move, stepping backwards with an eye-roll. "Fine," she said, moving to push her door closed. "Can't have the princess tired in the morning, can we?"

Before Jemilla was able to retort, the door was slammed in her face. She had half of a mind to knock again, but decided it wasn't worth it when she heard the music shut off and saw the light underneath the door go out.

Her hands came up and slowly wiped down her face, a sigh causing her shoulder to shrug as she did so.

She walked back to her room and went to go to sleep.

* * *

Future interactions with Zazzalil didn't go any better. The girl was aloof and carefree to a fault. Almost to the point where she came across as more care _less_ than anything else. On top of this, Jemilla was sure that Zazzalil skipped class more than she actually went. Sure, college was supposed to be fun. But primarily, it was meant to be a place to learn and prepare for your future, Jemilla reasoned, not to spend every waking moment galivanting around town and campus with your friends.

On top of her general life outlook, she was an absolute terror on the floor. Never in her life did Jemilla think she would have to tell someone not to ride their skateboard around _indoors,_ in a tiny hallway that definitely did not provide enough space to actually skateboard. Of course, Zazzalil had begrudgingly stopped when she told her to, but when she returned from class later that day there was a human-sized dent in the wall. Jemilla had known with the utmost certainty who had put the hole there, but she had no way of proving it and the entire floor appeared to have taken an oath of silence. Now it wasn't clear whether it was group effort, but she did know there was no way of punishing everyone. And so Zazzalil walked off, scot-free.

Not too long after that incident, Zazzalil actually managed to light the trash can by the elevator on fire. No one was quite sure how she did it. When she confronted the floor about it, Keeri had anxiously rambled something about a tube of Chapstick, but Jemilla had no idea how that story could have possibly lead to an actual fire on their floor. The answer had almost left her with more questions that she couldn't even begin to know how to ask. Instead, she dropped it by waving her hand dismissively and walking to her room, leaving her residents to stare after her until she slammed her door. Fortunately, she had enough evidence to peg Zazzalil for that one, and so she'd been able to write her up. But more often than not, whatever trouble Zazzalil got into she never wound up being held accountable for.

Jemilla's biggest problem with these issues, however, were not the incidents themselves. The thing that drove her crazy more than anything were the minor injuries she was getting that seemed to line up with Zazzalil's shenanigans.

When the hole had been put in the wall, there had been a giant bruise that appeared up and down the entire right side of her torso. When the fire had been lit, she had small burn marks on the tips of her fingers. There were other incidents that had lined up too perfectly to be a coincidence.

Like most people, she had wondered about the kind of person her soulmate might be when she gained new injuries and markings that she knew weren't from her. Jemilla had rather sizable markings pop up with astounding frequency. Since she was a small girl, she had always wondered about what her soulmate was like and tried to piece together stories based around them. In some scenarios she had come up with, she was athletic and received her injuries through various sporting events. In other scenarios, she was a meek abuse victim. Sometimes she simply lead a tough life and the injuries were collateral damage for whatever she had to do to survive.

Now, however, her potential soulmate had a face, and it was the fact of someone she held a feeling of disdain toward. Jemilla had always thought that knowing would be the most beautiful thing in the world, but now she was starting to think that she would rather not have known.

Instead of dwelling on it, she opted to ignore it. That wasn't normally how she operated, but it seemed like the best possible solution to the scenario until she could definitively prove that Zazzalil was her soulmate. She didn't want to confront Zazzalil just in case they were--she would know and Jemilla wanted time to process the fact before she had to talk to her about it. She knew there was probably a better way to handle the situation, but she couldn't think of a single one that didn't have just as many drawbacks.

This was the plan, and she was sticking to it.

* * *

Jemilla scrambled around her room, grabbing her jacket, phone, keys, and wallet in a methodical fashion just as she did in the mornings when she was getting ready for class. Her mind was reeling when her hand rested on the door handle. Was there anything else she might need right now?

Not that she could think of.

With a shove, her door was open and she was descending the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her. Not once in her entire college career had she gone to a frat party. The idea of going to one was less than appealing to her, but now here she was. Her first party and she was only going to pick up her intoxicated residents.

What was worse: it was a Sigma Nu Alpha party. The chapter was the Rho Lambda chapter, which gave it the campus nickname of SNARL. What an appropriate nickname it was. They seemed to prowl campus with confidence and numbers that were equal parts impressive and sickening. The brothers had numerous rape allegations against them, and one of their parties had gotten shut down the previous year because someone drugged the jungle juice. Another rumor that had circulated about them and their escapades was some contest among their brothers to have sex with as many girls from different sororities around campus. The stories of their shenanigans got to the point that people were afraid to walk past the frat house alone at night. Some shit about "the night belongs to SNARL" or some frat motto. The bottom line was that they, and anything associated with them, were very likely bad news.

That being said, Jemilla could think of worse ways to spend her weekend.

She pulled past the house, parked just down the street from the frat house, and began walking toward the property. The party appeared to be in full swing. It was only 1am which meant prime party time, she reasoned. There were drunken people meandering up and down the sidewalks. One person was throwing up into a bush not too far from the property. Another person looked like they were trying to climb the fence in the backyard, but quickly got busted and started running. The lights in the house flickered with some colorful strobe effect that Jemilla was sure could trigger an epileptic seizure. Given their reputation, it probably has at some point or another.

Yells and shouts grew louder as she approached. She walked to the door and moved to enter the house.

"Hang on." A voice stopped her, urging her to step away from the door. He was another student; someone she'd definitely seen walking around campus before but not someone she actually knew. "Are you on the list?"

Of course this party had a list. "Well, no, but-"

The boy shook his head, pointing back out to the street. "Nope, no buts. If you're not on the list, you don't get in."

"I'm just picking people up." Maybe if he knew that she would be in and out, he would let her pass.

"Then you can text them and they can come out and meet you."

No dice. Arguing with him was pointless, and he was getting downright irritating. She pulled out her phone, went through her contacts to call Keeri, and stepped out into the yard, pressing the phone to her ear. Her eyes darted downwards as a dull pain shot through her arm. Her soulmate, no doubt, she thought as she examined the appendage. Though she had trouble seeing it clearly in this lighting, she saw the beginnings of a bruise forming.

 _"Hello?"_ Keeri answered. She was hard to hear through all of the background noise on the other end.

"Hey, Keeri, I'm outside and they're not letting me in. You need to meet me in the front yard."

 _"'Kay. Zazz, get off the floor, come on."_ There was a beep and the other line went dead, and so Jemilla stood and waited, arms crossed over her chest. She could feel the guy at the door staring at her, likely sure that she would try again to get into the house.

At least 5 minutes had passed when the duo came out of the house. Keeri was basically supporting every pound of Zazzalil's weight, though Jemilla was confused as to how she wasn't also falling over, considering how drunk she had seemed when she called earlier. The smaller girl was tucked into her side, practically falling over herself, looking entirely out of it. Jemilla hurried to them and took over supporting Zazzalil so that the blonde girl could focus on herself.

"Holy shit, Keeri, how much did she have to drink?" She took a second to crouch down and throw Zazzalil's arm over her shoulder, gripping the girl's wrist. Her other arm wrapped around her waist so that she could hold her tighter to her side. This seemed to do sufficiently well at stabilizing her.

The blonde laughed, though no sound came out of her mouth. "Dunno, I lost track after seven."

"Seven?" She looked at Keeri, wide eyed. "Seven what?"

The girl shrugged, dismissing the comment as she continued to giggle to herself.

Jemilla groaned. "I'm parked over this way." She gestured with her head and walked slowly enough that the other two could keep up with her, though quickly enough that they weren't loitering on the side of the street.

"That was fun," Zazzalil said, though slurred to the point where Jemilla almost couldn't understand her. She felt Zazzalil's hand reach up and start sloppily playing with her curls, and felt little fingers entwine with the ones that were placed her waist. Jemilla let it happen. The sensation left tingles on her scalp, and it kept her occupied anyway.

"I'm glad you had fun." Jemilla was being sincere, which was something that startled even herself. As much as she didn't approve of them being at the party in the first place, that didn't mean she thought they shouldn't have enjoyed themselves. They were freshmen who were getting to enjoy college for the first time in their lives.

They stopped in front of a white Nissan. "This is mine."

"Ohh, you have a nice car," Keeri commented. It went ignored as Jemilla leaned Zazzalil against the vehicle just above the rear wheel, and propped her there by lifting a knee and letting the drunk girl's hip settle against her thigh. The car beeped as she hit the button and opened the door, urging Zazzalil into the rear driver's side, silently thankful that she was so small. Helping her ease into the vehicle would have been a much harder task if Zazzalil weighed more. Keeri climbed into the passenger side herself, throwing the door open with much more force than necessary, and claimed her seat next to Zazzalil.

The drive back to the dorms was fairly short, and almost as quiet as it was uneventful. Jemilla turned the radio on to some pop station and turned the volume down low enough that it was barely audible so that she could listen for signs that her residents were going to vomit--that was the last thing she wanted to happen to her car. Zazzalil made the occasional joke that was only funny to her and Keeri, and the two would drunkenly giggle about it while Jemilla continued driving, shaking her head to herself.

When Jemilla parked outside of their dorm room, further back in the parking lot than she would have liked, she was finally able to turn and address her residents. "I know you're sober enough to actually walk-" she looked to Keeri, and then to the problem at hand "-but I'm going to need to help her."

Disregarding Zazzalil's half-formed protests about being able to take care of herself, she got out of the car, and pulled open Zazzalil's door. The brunette smiled up at her with half lidded eyes, more giggles spilling out of her lips as surprisingly muscular arms stretched lazily behind her head. "Hey, 'Milla," she slurred.

"Hey, Zazz." Jemilla took this moment to smile back at her. It's not like she would remember this tomorrow. "Come on, I'm gonna help you up to your dorm. Can I have your keys?" With incomprehensible mumbles, the girl twisted her hips so that her lanyard was more easily visible and accessible to the taller girl. The RA pulled them out of her pocket and looped the fabric around her own neck.

"Ready?" she asked, stooping down to assist the girl out of the car. With a groan, the girl was soon stood firmly--or as firmly as she could be, given her current state--on the ground with her arms wrapped fully around Jemilla's waist to support herself. "And we're walking," Jemilla began softly as the two began shuffling to the best of their ability into the building, Keeri trailing closely behind. It was a short walk to the dorm building, and it thankfully wasn't locked due to the extended weekend hours.

"Hey, Jemilla," the RA sitting behind the front desk greeted, quirking an eyebrow at Jemilla's residents. It didn't take a genius to know what was going on, Jemilla knew that. She trusted the girl on desk duty, however, and knew that she wouldn't say anything to anyone.

"Hey, Emma," she shot back to the girl behind the desk as she pushed the elevator button and turned to more fully address her.

"Having a bit of a rough night, are we?" The teasing comment was characteristic of Emma, and Jemilla welcomed it with a smile and an eye roll.

"Something like that." The elevator dinged and they stepped into the metal cube, the doors sliding shut as Keeri pressed the button for their floor. Zazzalil was holding onto Jemilla like a lifeline, her head snuggled next to the RA's armpit. Jemilla, in turn, rubbed small circles on her back absentmindedly. She was surprised that the girl was so insistent on being so close to her. Presumably that's just the way the girl was when drunk; clingy and needy in the most adorable way possible. Jemilla was sure she would hang off of anyone else in this given scenario as well.

It was funny, really. She was starting to realize how much more she liked Zazzalil when she was drunk. Sure, she was a little obnoxious, but at least she wasn't outright rude.

In no time, the group was standing in Zazzalil's room. Jemilla turned and allowed the girls some privacy while Keeri busied herself with helping Zazzalil change her clothes. She had to stop herself from laughing as she listened to them pant and fight for longer than should have been necessary.

"Alright, I think she's good to go," Keeri said after several minutes. Jemilla turned around in time to see the girl flop backwards onto her bed, bouncing a few times on the cheap mattress.

"Thanks, Keeri." Jemilla smiled at her resident, and she offered a weak one back.

It faltered, however, and her mouth hung open as if she wanted to say something. "We're not in trouble," asked Keeri, looking toward Zazzalil whose eyes had just shut, her limbs sprawled out across her bed as if she were trying to take up the entire space, "right?" She had clearly sobered up a bit on the car ride over, unlike her friend.

"As much as I would absolutely _love_ to write the two of you up, I don't think I need to." Jemilla set her belongings on Zazzalil's desk and hung her jacket on the back of the chair. "The two of you needed help and, as your RA, I don't think that there should be repercussions for asking. All you did was get a little drunk." Again, she looked to Zazzalil, then back to the blonde. "Well, more than a little. But still. No one got hurt, no one died, nothing is broken…" Hands raising into a shrug, she trailed off. It was true that she didn't want to write the pair up. It would only dissuade them from coming to her about future problems and put a damper on the relationship she was trying to build with them.

"Just go get some sleep, and I'm gonna make sure Zazzalil doesn't die in her sleep," the curly haired girl said, motioning to the girl on the bed.

Keeri looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she nodded and left the room.

Finally alone with a snoring Zazzalil, Jemilla sat in the chair and merely waited. Normally she would have left Zazzalil, but now she felt solely responsible for her safety. She was certain that the girl would be fine, but her high strung mind kept replaying worst case scenarios of the girl choking on her vomit in her sleep, or falling out of bed and concussing herself played through her mind and kept her glued to her chair.

She played mindlessly on her phone to pass the time. She was quite impressed with how late she was staying up, if she did say so herself. On a normal night, she was out by ten. Sometimes she could swing staying up until midnight on the weekends if she had nothing going on the following day. A wave of tiredness didn't truly hit her until nearly one that morning. It came on suddenly, in the middle of a game of sudoku.

When it didn't pass, she stood to stretch her legs and make sure Zazzalil was still breathing. She stepped next to her bed and glanced down to brunette, whom was still sleeping contentedly. She hadn't moved in hours, and Jemilla was sure the brunette was going to seriously regret this in the morning.

Her thoughts drifted to the bruises that had appeared on her arm during the party. This would be the perfect time to verify whether or not the two were soulmates or, more accurately, the fact that Jemilla was overthinking a situation that didn't exist. With a long, withheld inhale, she looked down at Zazzalil's arm and noted the bruises that covered it. Without releasing her breath, she looked down at her own arm and froze.

For what felt like forever, the girl just sat and stared, unable to move. Swallowing through a lump in her throat, she moved her own arm closer to Zazzalil's to compare the two. She sharply sucked her air in through her teeth.

Every fiber of her being screamed to run. Instead, she hurried to her sweatshirt and threw it on to cover her arms. She wanted to stare at the matching wounds, but decided that nothing was going to change about what was happening. Her hands absentmindedly rubbed her arm where the bruises were.

There was no denying it anymore.

Zazzalil was her soulmate.

* * *

The next morning when Zazzalil awoke, it was early and with quite a bit more vomit than either girl would have preferred. Jemilla hurried to her side and held her hair as she emptied her stomach of the contents of last night's party into the trash can sitting next to the bed.

"You know it's probably worse because you didn't puke last night. With the amount you apparently had to drink, I'm surprised you didn't."

"Shut up," the girl spluttered in between dry heaving, "you've probably never-" she gagged "-even drank before."

Jemilla couldn't argue. Instead, she waited until the girl was done before helping her back onto the bed and offering her the water and painkillers she had set out last night. "You're gonna want these," she insisted, doing her best to ignore whatever pitiful look Zazzalil had tried to cover with resentment.

"Thanks," she mumbled, popping the pills into her mouth and washing them down with a large swig of water.

"If you drink it all that fast you'll throw up again." It was Zazzalil's turn to disregard a statement she had wished wasn't correct. "Anyway, if you're no longer dying, I think I'll head back to my room and get some sleep."

This time, she didn't give Zazzalil the chance to reply. She slipped through the doorway and into her own dorm room as quickly as she could, throwing herself on her bed with a huff.

With one hand, she pushed her sweatshirt sleeve up her arm and stared at the bruises.

How sad that she and her soulmate would never work.

* * *

Jemilla was able to ignore the fact that Zazzalil was her soulmate for awhile. When she would find new injuries and markings that would appear in various parts of her body; a bruise here, a papercut there, but thankfully never anything major. As quickly as the marks would appear, she would cover them with makeup. Any that she was unable to cover with makeup got covered with longer clothes. This thankfully got easier as the year drew into its winter months and the temperatures dropped.

This got simultaneously easier and harder to do as the two stopped ignoring each other's presence. The two didn't necessarily get along, but they didn't _not_ get along. And this state of Limbo, while painful for Jemilla since finding out they were soulmates, is a nice change. She welcomes it and decides that maybe she and Zazzalil deserve the chance to metaphorically start over. They would see each other and talk about whatever happened to come up.

In one particular conversation, Zazzalil was talking about a nasty bruise she had earned herself playing football with the rest of the floor. She laughed as she explained the accident to Jemilla and said an off handed, "I feel sorry for ruining soulmate's face with such a gross bruise." Jemilla chuckled humorlessly to herself, knowing but now second guessing the fact that Zazzalil was oblivious to who her soulmate actually was. It would have been funny, had it not been so sad, that Zazzalil missed the heavier-than-usual mountain of makeup that covered Jemilla's face.

There was another time Jemilla smacked her own forehead against her bed frame. She wasn't sure how she managed it, but she had. For the next week, she was forced to cover it up for fear of Zazzalil seeing the mark and recognizing it. The next time she saw Zazzalil, she was sporting the bruise like it was a trophy and laughing about some hypothetical scenarios she'd imagined about the bruise on her own forehead. Some in which he'd run into a tree branch, another where he'd gotten punched in the face, and a yet another where he'd fallen out of bed when he was in a rush. Jemilla laughed along with her, not having the heart to tell her that she wasn't too far off with that last one. This interaction had also left her with the knowledge that Zazzalil was under the impression that her soulmate was going to be a man, and that left a sour taste in her mouth.

All in all, hiding it was going well, if only emotionally challenging. In addition to this, Zazzalil appeared to be a little nicer to Jemilla since the party and, in turn, Jemilla realized that a lot of things the girl said and did were not because she didn't care. Quite the opposite, really. She did many of the things she did because she cared so much for the people around her and wanted to see them grow as individuals. One of her floormates is sad? She would skip class and get ice cream with them. Someone was having a rough night? She would bust out her skateboard and they would ride up and down the halls until they were feeling better.

That was something that Jemilla was growing to appreciate. As such, she was making a genuine effort to be more receptive to the things Zazzalil says and feels, and try to the bottom of why she was breaking the rules instead of automatically assuming she was doing it to be a nuisance.

* * *

It was a Saturday night and Jemilla was working on some homework while she worked at the front desk to the dorm building. Working desk was easy enough. You just looked busy and made sure that no one suspicious walked into the building.

When Molag approached, it was a good opportunity for the two to catch up. The semester had gotten in the way, and Jemilla hadn't been able to talk to her old RA in weeks.

The curly haired girl was in the middle of talking about one of her more difficult classes when Molag put a hand up to silence her. "Uhh, Jemilla?" The dark woman pointed to her own eye, prompting Jemilla to put a hand to her face. It stung all of a sudden and she felt something wet on her face. A hand flew to the area and when it came back there was blood on her fingertips.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," she said, not bothering to finish as she hopped onto the desk, spun around on her bottom, and walked across the lobby toward the bathroom. She cursed as she saw her reflection in the mirror and slammed the door shut behind her.

_Well, this is isn't good._

Now alone in the bathroom, she took a longer look at the already darkening bruise that was appearing around her eye and temple, coupled with a nice gash just above her eyebrow. Concern bubbled in her chest as she pulled paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and pressed them to her head to stop the bleeding. She pressed them to the bleeding area in hopes that this wouldn't take too long. It wasn't bleeding that badly, but she didn't particularly want to walk around campus with an open head wound.

"Shit," she breathed as her phone started buzzing. It was Keeri. She debated not answering for a moment, but knew that Zazzalil had likely just done something monumentally stupid and needed help.

Before she could talk herself back out of it, she accepted the call with her free hand and pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

_"Hey, uh, Jemilla?"_

"What do you need, Keeri?"

_"Um, so do you remember how you said that if we need help we won't necessarily be in trouble?"_

Great. Clearly whatever they had done, they seemed convinced it was a punishable offense. That's always great to hear from your residents. "Yes, I remember." Her voice stayed level and calm despite the growing unease with this conversation.

_"Okay, well, we were-"_

"Keeri, just tell me what's wrong with Zazzalil." She was growing impatient.

The girl on the other line paused, seemingly taken aback by the fact that Jemilla just _knew_.

_"I think she's unconscious."_

"How do you _think_ she's unconscious? She either is or she isn't." How was she not sure? It was a very simple question, so it was hard to tell where the confusion was coming from.

_"Well she-"_

"Never mind. Just..." She was tired of Keeri beating around the bush and only giving half answers. At this rate, they would be on the phone all night. If she was going to do anything that would be of any use to anyone, she needed to know where find them. "Where are you?"

_"Inside the Science Building."_

Jemilla groaned loudly. Every building on campus was supposed to be locked up for the weekend. How on earth had they managed to get into the building? They would have had to climb through a window or something. That wasn't important right now, though. "Be there in 5."

And, with that, she threw her paper towels away to see that the bleeding had more or less stopped. She ran out of the bathroom and darted past Molag with a quick, "I have to take care of something." She knew that the older woman, while not necessarily happy about it, would take over until the next desk worker came down for their shift in 45 minutes so long as Jemilla explained herself when given the chance.

* * *

She met Keeri at the door to the Science Building. Her curls bobbed as she stopped abruptly just inside the doors.

"Where's Zazzalil?"

Keeri stood, shifting awkwardly. "Jemilla, your face. Zazzalil-" She cut herself off, unsure of how to word the particular statement she wanted to say. "Are you her-"

"Yes." Jemilla knew what she was going ask before she even finished asking it. That was something that they could address at a later point in time. "Where is she?"

"This way."

Keeri lead her through a couple of different hallways. It didn't take long for them to get to where the rest of the friend group stood, all staring at a very obviously unconscious Zazzalil.

Jemilla ran to her, disregarding her other residents who had, no doubt, noticed the wound on her forehead that matched Zazzalil's.

She heard distinct mumbling behind her as she hunched over Zazzalil, gently running her fingers over the bruise and gash. "Zazzalil?" She asked quietly, hoping the girl would open her eyes. It hadn't been something she expected to happen. When that didn't happen, she turned to look at her residents.

"What did you do?" The group hesitating either because of the marks on her face or her tone. "I said. What. The. Fuck. Did. You. Do?"

"Well, we were skateboarding, and she kind of fell and hit her head." That had been Tiblyn this time.

"You were _skateboarding_. In the goddamn _Science Building?_ What are you fucking nuts?"

The group stood, none of them knowing what to say. Some were avoiding looking at the two, while others looked frantically between their matching injuries, knowing the implications full well. Others were simply avoiding confirming their idiotic behavior to their RA by nodding. On any account, it caused anger to bubble in Jemilla's chest.

"Well, are you all just going to stare at us, or are you gonna help?"

A beat.

"What do you need?" Emberly, ever the helpful friend, pulled her phone out of her pocket and stepped forward, ready to jump into action. This prompted others to do the same.

With a deep inhale of breath, Jemilla started giving commands which her residents began following as soon as they were received. "Smelly-Balls, go get paper towels from the bathroom. Emberly, call campus police and let them know what happened. Tiblyn, call 911. Schwoopsie, look up the address for this building so that Tiblyn can give it to the 911 operator. Chorn, go meet the paramedics at the door. Keeri, you sit here with her for a minute while I call up about this."

Everyone split off at that point, doing whatever they had been assigned, working together as efficiently as they could manage. Jemilla stood off to the side, phone pressed to her ear as she told Molag why she had run off so quickly.

Grunt and Ducker stood off to the side, simply watching everyone else get to work. "I guess there goes us not actually getting in trouble," Ducker muttered to the other under his breath, clearly more concerned about his standing with the university than Zazzalil's wellbeing. Jemilla had heard him and wordlessly shot a glare in his direction, pointing a nearby bench like an angry mother.

She returned to her phone call, assuring her boss that she had things under control, and told her that she might want to call up to make _her_ bosses aware of what was happening. "Those privileged fucks, those assholes don't even think about the work _we_ have to do when _they_ fuck up," Molag had grumbled before hanging up to do exactly that.

With her phone call completed, she was able to return her attention to the residents that were done with their tasks. She ushered them in the direction of the bench she had sent Ducker and Grunt to. When Smelly-Balls returned with the paper towels she made Keeri go sit as well and took the blonde's place by Zazzalil's side. Jemilla gently wiped blood away from the girl's temple, and then used a few other clean ones to press lightly against the wound, much like she had her own. Just as Jemilla's hadn't, Zazzalil's wasn't bleeding badly at all. It felt wrong to simply sit and do nothing, however, and so she figured this was the least she could do.

What Jemilla would assume to be about 5 or 10 minutes later, Chorn returned with a couple of paramedics. She backed off and let the two men get to work, joining her friends nearby.

They urged Jemilla to back up a bit, but didn't make her go to far. It appeared as though her presence did not bother them so long as she wasn't hovering. One of the men checking her vitals, starting with checking her pupils while the other handed him medical supplies. He gently pulled her eyelids one at a time and shined a light into her eyes. "Hey, kid. What's your name?"

Jemilla's jaw dropped slightly, and then her mouth closed again. They were probably just trying to see if she was conscious at all. He put his pocket light down and took the blood pressure cuff. Once he was done, the paramedic who wasn't checking her vitals nudged her shoulder slightly, hoping to stir her. "Miss, are you awake? Are you able to walk?"

Jemilla couldn't help the barely contained, growling laugh that erupted from somewhere in her throat. The paramedics looked back at her as she bit her lip and turned away, eyeing her equally amused residents. She felt bad for distracting them despite the hilarity of the scenario, and so she allowed them to continue doing their job without further interruptions. Not that they were doing a good job, but they were there and doing something, at least.

Thankfully, at this point the actual paramedics showed up and took over. Within a matter of minutes, they had the girl on a stretcher and were bringing her out of the building, the group of residents close behind.

* * *

Jemilla didn't go to visit Zazzalil in the hospital. She decided that, even though she'd had the time to cover up the bruise and put a beanie on over the gash, the best place for her was as far away from Zazzalil as possible. Lying by omission was a moral gray area that she did not particularly enjoy dwelling in.

The most time she had spent at the hospital had been right after the ambulance had taken Zazzalil. She brought a few of her residents in her car to be with Zazzalil, and had left them with the promise that she would come back for them whenever they called. She'd held up her side of the bargain, and made a few trips back and forth that day, though she never got closer to the building than the front of the parking lot.

Keeri would keep her updated on Zazzalil with each trip she made. Even if she hadn't come back to the dorms with Jemilla, she would come out to the car or send others with news regarding the girl's condition. The first update was that the brunette had woken up not long after she arrived at the hospital. The second was that she had specifically requested Jemilla's company so she could thank her--Jemilla had smiled but politely told Keeri that she would have to pass. The third and final update was that she had a mild concussion and her mother was on her way down to see her. Jemilla was simultaneously relieved at the revelation that the girl was going to be okay, and that her mother would likely drive her back to the dorm and Jemilla wouldn't have to.

But then there was the matter of all of her residents knew who her soulmate was; except her actual soulmate, of course. Jemilla hoped that they would decide it wasn't their business and not get involved, but she knew them better than that. It felt like a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow up.

* * *

Early the following morning, Zazzalil came back to her dorm room. The girl was getting off of the elevator while Jemilla was waiting to get on so that she could head to the library.

The brunette smiled up at her and offered up a hug. If to do nothing but keep up the charade that there was nothing weird between them, Jemilla accepted. She was instantly hit with the smell of fruity shampoo and the feeling of the girl squeezing her midriff slightly.

"Thanks for taking care of me yesterday," she had said. Jemilla had simply smiled and told her that it was not a problem before departing to the library.

So no one had told her.

She felt herself sigh in relief as the elevator doors closed behind her, leaving her alone to her thoughts. At this point, she wasn't even lying because she wanted to. It had become such an integral part of their relationship and them getting along, that Jemilla no longer wanted to risk what they had by telling her.

From that point going forward, things fell back into the same comfortable routine from before Zazzalil's trip to the emergency room. This time, however, Jemilla more actively avoided interacting with Zazzalil if she didn't have to. The brunette seemed confused at first. Jemilla would notice her confused expression when she would dart past the shorter girl without so much as a hello. This also earned knowing looks from her residents, the worst offender being Keeri for obvious reasons. But still, it didn't seem as if anyone told her.

And so Jemilla continued to keep the secret.

* * *

It wasn't until nearly two full weeks after the skateboarding incident that anything eventful happened.

Jemilla had been waiting for the elevator when she saw Keeri and Zazzalil talking in hushed voices at the end of the hallway. It didn't seem too different from normal until she caught Zazzalil giving her a wide-eyed look. Something about this look told her everything she needed to know. A hopeful glance up to the number above the elevator indicated that it had just settled on the first floor. By the time it even started to come back up, it would be too late.

Anxiety rising in her chest, she looked back to Zazzalil who had already made it halfway down the hallway. Thinking on her feet, Jemilla hurried to the left of the elevator and down the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her.

She didn't turn around until she walked out into the brisk, late fall air.

Zazzalil knew, and the game was over.

* * *

"I don't want to talk about it." Jemilla put her hands up defensively as she walked toward her dorm room, Zazzalil trailing closely behind her.

"So Keeri was telling the truth? When were you going to tell me?" The brunette waited for a response, but when there was none she pushed on. "It's eleven at night. I know you don't ever stay out later than eight. You're avoiding me, but you can't keep it up forever."

It was true. Jemilla had known that the smaller girl would likely try and confront her about the issue at hand sooner than later and had been doing her best to prevent that from happening. Her impromptu, extra late study session had been by design, and for this very reason. If she wasn't on the floor, Zazzalil wouldn't be able to find and corner her. What she hadn't counted on was Zazzalil guarding the elevator until Jemilla had returned, exhausted. It had been a Friday, so she was willing to stay out later than usual, but it appeared that Zazzalil was ready to wait all night for her if she had to.

Opting to ignore her resident, she grabbed her key and reached to unlock her door, but Zazzalil's hand slammed on the door and she stepped in front of the handle, blocking it with her torso. This was really going to be unavoidable.

"Well, seeing as though you're going to force me to talk about it." Jemilla sighed, chewing on her lips. Her eyes darted to the study room. "Can we at least not argue in the middle of the hall?" Zazzalil followed Jemilla's gaze and felt a slight heat rise to her cheeks. Practically the entire floor was sat, doing their best to pretend like they weren't listening, with varying degrees of believability, though none of them entirely convincingly.

The two locked gazes again. Jemilla gave a gesture toward her door, to which Zazzalil stepped away and allowed her arm to drop back to her side. Once Jemilla got the door open, Zazzalil followed her inside. Soon enough, the door clicked shut behind them, and they were both standing in the middle of the RA's immaculate room.

Once inside, however, both were entirely uncertain about what to say. Jemilla went about putting her things away, hoping that the silence would continue and Zazzalil would give up.

"We're soulmates." The words hung in the air, and Jemilla wasn't even sure Zazzalil registered them as they left her own mouth. Maybe she hadn't meant to be so straight forward, but couldn't help the blunt statement. That did seem to be Zazzalil's greatest flaw--she rushed right into things with reckless abandon.

Sighing, Jemilla stopped what she was doing and stood at her full height, looking to her again. "So it seems we are." The matter-of-fact response seemed to throw Zazzalil into an entirely renewed fit of rage.

"It doesn't matter to you? Like, not at all?" She didn't wait for a response, noting the indifferent tone her voice held. "We're goddamn soulmates, Jemilla. I thought we were finally friends, and now I have to find out that you apparently hate me. Are you serious right n-"

"I don't hate you!" It came out as an angry shout that she wished she could take back. Zazzalil stared, wide eyed at the brunette in front of her. "I hated you at first, but after I picked you up from that party and I realized we were soulmates, I decided to give you a chance. I know that you don't even like me and you'd rather have probably any fucking other person on the planet as your soulmate, but I don't need you to rub it in." She cleared her throat, regaining her composure.

"So you've known since the party." Zazzalil's lips pressed together tightly and she paced around for a few seconds before squaring to face Jemilla again. "You really weren't ever going to tell me."

"I was going to tell you," Jemilla corrected, a tense hand running up and down her forearm to help soothe the anxiety she felt. "I just needed to figure out how I felt before I did. So I hid it until I was ready and, before I knew it, I felt like I couldn't tell you because I'd been keeping it hidden for so long. It felt like in order for us to actually get along, I wouldn't be able to tell you because I knew you didn't care for me like that."

Some unreadable expression crossed Zazzalil's face and then, ever so slowly, she had crossed the room and pressed her own lips to Jemilla's in a hard but slow kiss. It was desperate, and needy, and...

Surprisingly nice.

When Zazzalil pulled away, it looked like the kiss had helped to curb some of what she was feeling, but fire still burned behind her eyes. "You have no idea how long I've liked you for," she said breathlessly.

Jemilla's eyes involuntarily dart to Zazzalil's mouth before she finds herself pushing forward, recapturing the girl's lips with an energy and intensity that matched Zazzalil's own. She felt one hand slide around her waist and rest on the small of her back while another reached for the back of her neck and tangled in curls.

Jemilla's own hands flew up to Zazzalil's face, running her fingers over her cheekbones and the square of her jaw before trailing up to comb through soft hair.

When they finally broke apart for air, Jemilla's eyes were still closed, but she felt Zazzalil lean forward and rest their foreheads together. Neither said anything, and so Jemilla continued to keep her eyes closed and chose to simply breathe in the scent of pine--the scent of Zazzalil.

When she finally opened her eyes, Zazzalil was looking over her face with an unreadable expression.

"Was…" She paused, nibbling on her lip for a few seconds. "Was that okay?"

Jemilla hummed, closing her eyes again. Neither wanted to move for fear of the moment ending.

"Do you know how you feel now?" Zazzalil whispered, keeping her voice quiet and low.

Again, Jemilla hummed. "Not quite," she whispered back, "but I think I'm starting to figure it out." Her eyes opened again, and she offered a timid smile, though she did her best to make it as reassuring as possible.

Zazzalil gave a small one back, pulling the other girl back in for another kiss. The two smiled and let out breathy giggles into the kiss.

This was something Jemilla could get used to.

**Author's Note:**

> My fiancée used be an RA, so I was basically an RA without the title. Some of the things that happened in this fic were references to things that happened on my own college campus, and stories that I've had as an "RA" such as:  
> \- Someone drugging the jungle juice at a frat party  
> \- Frat "sleeping around" contest  
> \- First responders asking an unconscious resident to walk  
> \- Human sized hole in dorm wall via skateboarding accident


End file.
